I'm delighted to see that discussion has already begun on this film. Let me start by saying that I chose the film for the way paranoid schizophrenia is portrayed and in that, I accept that the plot itself is pretty ordinary. But it works reasonably well as a means to show us who Romulus is and how he functions.
This film does not romanticize madness. It does not give us the kind of happily ever after triumph over mental illness that many of us wish for. In the end, Romulus returns to his cave to live, refusing his daughter's offer of shelter. His madness is still what his life is about, as is most often the case with paranoid schizophrenia. It is hard for us to accept that someone like him would refuse help, refuse shelter and instead opt to live out on the margins, lacking stable relationships, housing and even food. But this is where the inner world of Romulus takes him, into the precarious security he is able to forge against the forces of his delusions and hallucinations. We see his moments of lucidity collapse again and again in the face of his persecutory delusions. And we see what is truly lost to his madness when we hear him play the piano. Even when lucid, he is semi-hallucinatory, living in a dream-world in which his imaginary ex-wife represents his rational thoughts. He cannot hold on to conversations without drifting into his internal world, and he turns every rumor he hears into fuel for his paranoia. He can barely concentrate enough to complete a sentence or a short piano piece. He destroys his credibility when he tells the police that the murder committed by Stuyvesant with death rays shot from the Chrysler Building. We see that he knows about his own problems, and works to fight them in order to stay on the trail.
Often there is a kernel of truth inside delusions and that is true here. Ledbetter makes strong social commentary but his madness, his paranoia is wound all through it. What might be a grain of paranoia in someone who rails against the system in Ledbetter becomes a persecutory system of death rays and terror directed at him.
Roger Ebert gave this film one of its more positive reviews. You can read it here.
And now, let's talk about the film!